Reuters: Lawsuits Ready To Shut Down Executive Gun Control

Getty Images4 Jan 2016

On January 3, Reuters reported that Freedom Watch will be filing a lawsuit against Obama’s executive gun control as soon as it’s issued.

The two central tenets of the executive gun control under consideration are an expansion of background checks to cover more private gun sellers and more reporting requirements for federally licensed firearms dealers.

According to Reuters, Freedom Watch is approaching Obama’s executive action on guns the same way his executive action on illegal immigrants was approached. They will file suit and seek to stop the implementation of the executive gun controls based on their conviction that Obama “lacks the authority to change the legal definition of who must obtain a dealer’s license.”

And Freedom Watch will “almost certainly” not be alone. Gun rights groups are also expected to file suits to stop Obama’s actions on the grounds that he has no authority to take them.

Reuters believes Obama might avoid lawsuits only by issuing executive orders that are “advisory” in nature rather than binding. “This would be advisory and lack the force of law, which would mean that prosecutors could not rely on it when pursuing small gun dealers.”

But even in a worst case scenario, where Obama issues binding orders and those orders somehow survive legal scrutiny, UCLA law professor Adam Winkler says the gain in new controls will be minimal at best. Winkler said, “This won’t really close the gun-show loophole, it will only narrow that loophole. This is going to marginally increase the number of people who have to get a license.”

Neither House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) nor Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have said what they plan to do to fight the implementation of any executive gun controls put forward by Obama.